Make-A-Wish Foundation Turns San Francisco Into Gotham for 5-Year-Old Batkid | Hacker News Reader

Make-A-Wish Foundation Turns San Francisco Into Gotham for 5-Year-Old Batkid

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193 pointsnrayamajhee65 comments

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I really felt some strong emotions while reading through this.

It's amazing.

The news spot just has to the the cherry on top. So happy for this kid that he had an awesome day.

It does restore some faith in humanity to see things like this.

...however...

I hate myself for being the contrarian in this case but as a South African and having worked with one or two NGOs that work with sick people in general, including kids with AIDS I can't help but wonder how far the budget and effort put into this could have been stretched.

Granted, there are plenty aid organizations and shit tons of money (much of it dollars) that are pushed into Africa but if you've seen what's happening here first hand it's very hard not to think about what could be done with every single cent and every ounce of human energy.

I remember coming home one day after seeing some particularly gut wrenching stuff and not even being able to look at myself. The food in my plate. The clothes on my back. My kids. A room full of useless fucking toys...

It's the wrong lens through which to view these things. I know that in my head but my heart is breaking all over again as I types this on several fucking thousand rands worth of smartphone.

Here's a lens that might be helpful to view this through: seeing these kinds of personal, touching results encourages philanthropy--we're "spending money to make money," so to speak. We just need to channel that generated emotion and desire-to-help through the cold, calculating hands of organizations like GiveWell. :)

Another interpretation could be: "we did out part, we helped batkid. No need to donate/volunteer/etc"

There's a similar thing called in internet activism , where people who upvote/like and comment don't go and be really politically active, in a politically meaningful way.

I wonder whether seeing a story where something good happened that you didn't have a (rationalizable) part in, still triggers the effect. If it did, you'd think aid organizations would A/B-test call-ins to their telethons and realize that they should stop showing the happy kids that've already been helped.

I got a bit of a dust mote in my eye while reading this and had to step outside of the workroom for a short break.

Whenever I meet someone who asks for donations in the name of sick kids I politely refuse. I am always skeptical as to where that money actually goes. But when I read this report I am willing to donate more money to this organization.

The story is not just heartwarming it has served number of purposes. I got to know more about the disease, the organizations involved and most importantly it has motivated me to give money from my pocket to beat the real nemesis of that young batkid.

> But when I read this report I am willing to donate more money to this organization.

At the risk of being overly cynical, and putting words into mark_integerdsv's mouth, I believe that's almost exactly what he's arguing against. Make-a-wish spends $7.5k on each wish on average[1]. Whereas something like Schistosomiasis Control Initiative per-child cost is $5[2]. That is, the money spent "granting wishes" could perform much more good elsewhere, and so by donating to Make-a-Wish one is buying "fuzzies"[3], not being optimally philanthropic.

[1]: http://wish.org/content/faq#How-much-does-granting-a-wish-co...

[2]: http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/schistos... , the $5 figure comes from http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

[3]: Word adopted from http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_sepa... , meaning "warm fuzzy feelings of 'doing good'"

GiveWell estimate the cost per life saved for the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative to be around $1700-$3800, while the $7,500 that Make-a-wish spends per child, while a wonderful gesture, does not actually save their life.

True, it's not optimal. But, it's important to keep in mind that this is not a zero-sum game. The $7500 is not being diverted or even distracted from more efficient uses. It's money that in all likelihood would have never been donated to other uses.

We need a lot more of both ends of this spectrum. More warm fuzzies to get people's attention -at all. And, more awareness of the wildly different efficiencies of different philanthropic strategies. Achieving both attention and efficiency is really hard. If you figure out how to do that, let me know. In the mean time, we should be happy for whatever wins we can get.

I do not think the said organization is working in the area of "Schistosomiasis Control Initiative". They are working in a different area and it is good thing that they have money to spend. May be it is much easier to ask for money for leukemia than for "Schistosomiasis Control Initiative".

I dont think the said organization is optimizing for overall child health care. They are optimizing it for a particular area.

The money that went into this endeavor was nothing compared to the compassion and outreach completely fed by the people of this city. All of the media and news you see is a result of grass roots movements, social media, and general kindness. Not some corporate sponsor.

My point is, this is hands down an act of kindness by an entire city. There isn't an evil plot behind it.

This makes me very happy, and it should make you happy too.

Intentions of kindness, sure. Grass roots movements, perhaps. But also more than a little wasteful. All of these things can be true at the same time.

I'm happy for the kid, but I wish a fraction of the human effort directed into this one sweeping act of altruism could be put to more productive ends.

A lot of people makes a lot of money on this heart warming story.

Just saying.

Judging an act by its consequences seems like a frightfully hard-nosed, rational thing to do; the problem with trying to put it into practice is that we tend to end up judging only by the superficially obvious consequences and ignoring the more important long-term effects.

It's easy to compare the nominal cost of this event with the idea that it only helped one person, but the latter isn't actually true; it obviously brightened the lives of thousands of people, and not just with shallow entertainment but with the opportunity to lift their gazes from the mud and look at the sky, to reflect for a moment on their place in the world. I have no idea how to calculate the benefit from that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it greatly outweighed the cost.

As you say, truckloads of aid money has been pouring into Africa for decades, and not only has it not produced the promised results, it has been argued by people familiar with what actually happens there that it does more harm than good: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-intervie...

By contrast, smartphones are connecting Africa to modern civilization, and that's something that might actually make a positive difference. There is after all no intrinsic reason Africans can't provide food and water and medicine for themselves just as people do in Europe and America and large parts of what used to be the Third World. What's missing is knowhow and organization. A truckload of money dumped into projects that feel good to rich Westerners won't provide those things. Putting the knowledge of humanity at the fingertips of individual Africans just might.

And yet those phones weren't paid for by charity, because the people running charities are mortal and fallible; they just can't see that far ahead. The phones were paid for primarily by rich Westerners buying them as toys.

The world is more complex than any of us can know. Enjoy your toys with a clear conscience.

While I totally agree with most of the sentiments you have expressed I do need to point out one issue I have with your comment:

>There is after all no intrinsic reason Africans can't provide food and water and medicine for themselves just as people do in Europe and America and large parts of what used to be the Third World. What's missing is knowhow and organization.

This comment is totally ignorant of the scale of the problems faced in the third world.

Ridding ourselves of corruption and getting together a solid plan still leaves us with massive problems to fix. Truly, MASSIVE problems.

It is the scale that requires capital and make no mistake that the first world has no small amount of complicity in the current state of the rest of our world.

I agree with you that money isn't going to solve it all.

Throwing money at it is largely a case of too little too late.

>> it obviously brightened the lives of thousands of people, and not just with shallow entertainment but with the opportunity to lift their gazes from the mud and look at the sky, to reflect for a moment on their place in the world. I have no idea how to calculate the benefit from that, but it wouldn't surprise me if it greatly outweighed the cost.

But we don't know if it had a positive effect. Maybe it had a negative effect? Maybe people will donate and volunteer less to other causes ? Maybe we are replacing valuable charity with fun charity ? Those are all valid options.

And because this affected so many people , the cumulative effect would be a big negative ?

It's hard to fully predict the result of our actions. Life is complex as you say.But that's beside the point.

The point is: thousands of people having a good time, while believing they did something great, while doing very little in reality.

Don't let yourself go down that road of thinking. If you judge every happiness done for others based on how many other people it could have helped, you will eventually suck all the joy out of every endeavor of yourself and others. Weighing souls will weigh down yours.

On a purely money note, Make-a-wish got a lot of publicity and goodwill which will help in other fund raising efforts so they can help even more people. It was an extremely good (and common) trade for a NGO. For example, the cost of holding an art show generally pays dividends in getting money to teach more artists. The "show" pays for a lot of "nuts & bolts".

It's nice to help suffering people.

The recurring pattern I see, however, is: We single out 0.001% of all cases, do something extraordinary, and make a big fuss about it in the media. All this to make us feel good about ourselves. What we don't want to fix though, are the real causes of the problems, because that's way less pleasant to do.

What are you talking about?

"What we don't want to fix though, are the real causes of the problems"

I'm pretty sure a crap ton of people are working on solving "the problem" aka cancer. The world is filled with shitty things, can't people create the occasional extraordinary experience/ scenario just to make people feel good?

If you look at statistics for access for cancer care for people with low income, you'll probably find enough places to put this money and effort into with better impact.

But that's boring.

People are also working on bringing cheaper care to people who can't currently afford it. Plus, this event was organized almost entirely for free.

Some people can only complain, all you can do is avoid them.

Sigh. Since when did HN become Upworthy and the glurge that went with it.

A child life is probably worth less than $1000, rather than that new TV I can assure you the money to an average charity will save a childs life.

Yet throw in Batman and a whole lot of Redditors and we've saved the world.

Hey it's better than a normal street parade / pissing it up at a pub. But lets get a grip on reality.

If this angers you so much perhaps you should organize with other like-minded readers and do something about it?

Shared the photos and story with my wife. We both had tears running down our face. We both pictured our son as batkid. People are good.

People are good, and sometimes we don't give enough credit. :)

Amen.

FTFY People are good sometimes, and we don't give enough credit when that happens.

I can't help but think this is mostly for the adults watching, just like setting up "santa".

I suspect the kid would have been just as happy running around a yard or his block with "batman" for a whole afternoon.

It seems like he didn't even have enough time to take in each event.

Still, I hope it gives him great memories instead of being ill and in the hospital.

Make-A-Wish Foundation, doing things that don't scale :P

Why does everything has to scale? Why can a good deed not go unpunished (like in some comments here)?

Your comment reminded me of one famous quote from the ring, the yews gave Oskar Schindler[1]: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

Some people (ok, a lot of people) just made the miserable life of one little child a lot better. And they made their own lifes better, by showing what can be accomplished together. What is so bad in that, that it warrants these snarky remarks here on HN? That I really do not understand.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler#After_the_war

Why do people make assumptions on the motive behind other peoples' posts :)

I don't think the GP is making a value judgement on the fact that Make A Wish often does things that do not scale. Rather I took it as a way to partially describe the Make A Wish organization in the language used to describe startups.

If I have misunderstood the OP, I apologize. I know of the 15 to 1 ration of the possibility to misunderstand in every communication.

So I should have given him the benefit of the doubt.

He wasn't insulting it, he was referencing a pg post that changed the way a lot of people approach startup marketing/relations: http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

I clicked the comment link for this story just to see how HN readers would make this simple feel-good story into some cynical circle-jerk. Was not disappointed.

Seconded

I did see some cheery responses that were nice, though. So there's at least a little hope.

I just read the comments, some people like it, some other discuss whether it really makes sens. What's wrong with that?

My comment would almost certainly be one that you are referring to.

I think you need to justify how it is a cynical comment please?

To me, the truly cynical thing here is that you can't seem to understand that Batkid's entire life is a lot more comfortable and pleasant than that of a great number of sick children around the world.

The fact that so much that could have gone so far was spent on making an already (relatively) privileged existence fun for a day because of the air time it generates - is hideously cynical.

I really do not wish to be overdoing the guilt trip here, I'm just a little baffled by your definition of cynicism.

Making endeavors like this scale is an interesting problem. On the surface, this is inherently unscalable, but it does prove that a novel idea can spark latent compassion to create something truly awesome. The obvious thought is applying something like Batkid to third world cases, but it would end up helping out a few cases in the millions that exist. A cynical view is to look at this as an example of first world individualism triumphing over the greater need of larger populations, but I think it's worth thinking about it the other way round - how might it be possible to use compelling stories like this to solve a larger population of problems.

Buzzfeed has a lot of pics of today's event.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/everything-you-need-t...

How much did this cost the city? It's adorable but blocking streets off and crowd control costs money.

Bruce Wayne had it covered.

If that's true then: awesome.

Stating the obvious: it is not true, since fictional characters cannot pay for things in the real world.

From some Googling, a WSJ story says about the police:

"It just cost us our time. We told the guys prior that they were not going to make overtime, the ones who chose to hang around it was more of having your heart in the right place. Obviously it was necessary to put police resources into it, that happens all over major cities all the time, but this was not publicly funded."

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/11/15/police-chief-greg-...

Isn't the whole economy about fictional money paying for real money?

The GP says fictional _characters_.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know that the fictional characters were using real money, I should retract my statement.

Perhaps "Bruce Wayne's" money might have been better spent in providing base line care and medical research to the benefit of many, rather than spending it on a big PR stunt.

I think you're totally missing the point of the Make-A-Wish foundation -- the MAW foundation isn't for care. It's to make the life of a child who's been affected by a life-threatening disease a little bit better so that they can enjoy something magical in their life.

Many, many people benefitted from this.

And how much of that money could have been used to treat other equally worthy people suffering in equally hard ways?

Emperor Norton would likely approve.

So how can we get the same people motivated to work for a cure?

Out of curiosity, exactly how would these people work for a cure?

It can't be money, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is shockingly well funded to the tune of a quarter of a billion dollars in 2012 and that's just one of the dozens of nonprofits not to mention all the leukemia research organizations. Surely you can't mean for them to drop what they are doing and get a Ph.D. and go into research?

Nobody ever means that, but some days I wonder what the hell I'm doing. I'm not a genius, by any standard, and I likely wouldn't be the one to come up with the cure for cancer, but why the hell am I not dedicating my life to that project and helping those people there might find a way to eradicate cancer? Or HIV/AIDS? Or child poverty? Some days I think that would not be a bad idea, to drop everything and dedicate my life to something greater than myself.

Nothing to see here. Just your usual existential crisis brought on by a comment about a kid dressed up as Batman.

Don't bother with the pH.d. I only made 40k with that degree trying to cure cancer. On the one hand, where is that money going? On the other hand, I wouldn't pay most PhDs half that.

I think one issue with this sort of thing is people feel like they either have to feel warm, positive emotions about this, or prove that it is somehow harmful or at least not beneficial.

I assume there is some small benefit to this kind of action, but I don't have any emotional connection or interest in it.

It's a good thing this was posted to hn, otherwise I never would have heard about it.

Compassion begets compassion. For this reason alone this event was beyond price.

This is the only article I am going to share on social media in a long time.

But what would other kids think? Wouldn't they get jealous?

http://vine.co/v/htbdjZAPrAX

made my day :)

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